1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a miniature portable system for design, deployment, test, and optimization of a communications system, such as an indoor or campus-wide wireless or wired communication network. A handheld computing platform is used for the collection and display of communication signal properties, the manipulation of communication system components in a communications network design, and the prediction and optimization of communication systems during design, deployment, or maintenance operations.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years the use of wireless communication technology, such as cellular phone networks, has greatly increased. Moreover, it has become common to implement wireless communication systems within buildings or large facilities comprising several buildings. Examples of typical wireless communication systems are local area networks (LAN), wide area networks (WAN), or cellular phone networks such as PBX, or local loops. Due to the increasingly diverse applications of wireless communication systems, system designs have become increasingly complicated and difficult to implement. Common to all communication system designs, regardless of technology, size or scale, is the need for measurement data at some point in the design process. Whether in the initial design stage or the final verification stage, no communication system is implemented without the input of measurement data. However, measurement acquisition within in-building environments is much more tedious and time consuming than in the macrocellular environment where measurement acquisition is carried out using Global Positioning System data to determine the location of the measurement being taken. Global Positioning System (GPS) data, which so many RF engineers have come to rely upon for outdoor measurement acquisition, is not an option for microcell environments. Therefore, recording real-time measurement data within a building becomes a laborious, time-consuming task involving scratched notes and blueprints and manual data entry which are both expensive and ineffectual in many respects.
In addition to measuring RF signal properties from emitted base transceivers there is also a need to measure data throughput time in computer data networks. Throughput time is the time required to transfer a record or file of known size from one computer to another. In order to standardize the measurement of data throughput time for comparison or verification purposes, files of a set size (e.g. 100 K) are used and transferred in packet sizes such as 512 bytes. Similar to RF signal attenuation, data throughput time is also a function of transmission distance and signal obstruction (e.g. walls, doors, partitions), as well as multipath propagation and the specific radio modem design.
Various signal property measurement acquisition tools and systems have been developed to aid in the design of wireless communication systems such as PenCat™, Walkabout PCS™ and TEMS Light.
LCC International Inc. offers the PenCat™ as a pen-based collection and analysis tool for wireless communication design that runs on a small hand-held tablet computer. The PenCat™ system enables a user to roam about a building, take signal property measurement data at a location in the building using a receiver linked to the tablet computer, and link the measured data to that building location on a computer map representing the building by tapping the appropriate portion of the map on the computer screen with a stylus pen. The building map can be entered into the PenCat™ system by either scanning blueprints, sketching the building within the application, or importing from another source. PenCAT uses two dimensional bit maps to model the building environment.
Safco Technologies, Inc. offers the Walkabout PCS™ system as a portable survey coverage system for use in indoor or outdoor wireless communication system design. Similar to PenCat™, the Walkabout PCS™ system utilizes a hand-held computer linked to a receiver for measuring signal properties at a given location and linking the measured property data to that location represented on a stored computer map. Also similar to the Safco Walkabout is the Agilent 74XX indoor measurement system, which also uses a bitmap floor plan.
Ericsson Radio Quality Information Systems offers the TEMS Light system as a verification tool for wireless communication indoor coverage. The TEMS Light system utilizes a Windows-based graphical interface with two dimensional bit map drawings on a mobile computer linked to a receiver to allow a user to view a stored building map, make location specific data measurements, and link the measured data to the represented location on the stored computer map. Unlike other in-building communication measurement systems, InFielder™ by Wireless Valley Communications, Inc. merges measurement data with periodic updates of position location on a three-dimensional model of the physical environment. The InFielder™ product concept is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/221,985 filed Dec. 29, 1998, and the contents of this application are herein incorporated by reference.
In addition to the above-discussed wireless communication systems verification tools, various wireless communication system prediction tools have also been devised such as Wireless Valley Communications Incorporated's Predictor™ and Ericsson Radio Quality Information Systems' TEMS. Predictor™ allows a wireless communication system designer to predict the coverage area of a particular wireless system in a building or across multiple buildings. Predictor™ creates a computer simulation using a computer stored building or facility database and a defined transceiver location and type within the database. Based on the building configuration and building material properties defined in the database a prediction of the coverage area of the wireless system is extrapolated by site-specific propagation whereby rays drawn between the transmitter and receiver and three-dimensional building information are used for prediction computations. The TEMS system predicts indoor coverage of a wireless system based on a stored building map and input base transceiver locations and types using statistical radio coverage models.
While the above-mentioned design and verification tools have aided wireless system designers in creating indoor wireless communication systems using building drawings and linking data measurements to building drawings, none of the devices, except for InFielder™ and Predictor™, incorporate three-dimensional building drawings to enhance the design process. Further, the above-mentioned devices and systems lack the ability to track a roving user while autonomously or passively measuring or collecting network performance data while uploading or downloading the data to a remote monitoring location. These capabilities may be required for installation and ongoing monitoring and management of wireless devices for global network access.
There have been recent innovations in the use of portable handheld computers as information collection devices for field maintenance and service. River Run Software has produced the OnSite software that uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) to display street maps of a desired location. Using custom designed information gathering forms, OnSite allows a field operator to go directly to a location, gather information, and either return with that information of send the gathered data over a wired or wireless communications link to another computer. Autodesk, Inc. also produces a software tool called OnSite that, although independent of River Run's OnSite, accomplishes a similar task. Autodesk's OnSite allows a field operator to collect information in a remote setting using a GIS mapping engine and Oracle database software, and return with that information for record keeping, etc.
The River Run and Autodesk products are strictly outdoor field maintenance tools and only display two dimensional raster images to the user. These products do not address the complexities of the three dimensional world of in-building systems, which is significantly more difficult to model and visualize due to multiple stories or unique three dimensional features. Furthermore, these products only allow viewing and retrieval, and do not permit on-site or remote adjustment and manipulation of modeled features.